Eagle

The entire tire/wheel thing just baffles me. I looked at the prices on some of those wheels the last time I was at the local tire chain outlet to have a few old tires dismounted from the rims. DANG! A dude can easily drop 5 grand just on a set of wheels! And the cars I mostly see that stuff on aren't worth anywhere near that much. Who in their right mind puts $5,000 worth of tires and wheels on an $800 beater? Never mind -- I think the question sort of answers itself ...

How did you check the CPS? It is EXTREMELY unlikely that the ignition module is bad, and even more unlikely that you got a brand new one that would also go bad within 20 minutes. However, sporadic malfunctions, progressively getting worse, is characteristic of a bad CPS.

I would strongly recommend that you do NOT remove the connector and splice the wires. You'll just be making things more difficult for the next time you replace the CPS. It is intended to be replaceable -- it's a "consumable" part, although the interval is *normally* between 100,000 and 150,000 miles. The problem is that in the models before mid-1990 the main wiring harness that the CPS connects to is too long and too small, so there's a voltage drop between the CPS and the ECU. When the CPS gets old and doesn't generate a strong impulse, the ECU doesn't read it. There is a wiring harness patch to run a pair of wires directly from the CPS weatherpack connector directly to the ECU. I would suggest you get that, install it, and keep the plug-in connector on the CPS.

x4 ==> CPS

^^^ That's a nice manifold, but it doesn't fit the 1990 Renix engine. BTW, whatever you do, do not be tempted to use the carb from a 4.2L Wrangler. It's not only a lousy carb, it's also dangerous. A lot of Wranglers burned up because of that carb. If I were doing it, I'd use a 400 cfm version of the old Carter AFB. Edelbrock now makes that carburetor, although I don't know if they go that small. It's very reliable, easy to tune with replaceable jets and metering rods, and the small primaries generate excellent gas mileage as long as you keep your foot light enough to not open the secondaries.

While you are in there working, check to be sure the parking brake cables are clean and slide easily. Nothing kills a fresh brake job faster than parking, then the cables don't let the parking brake release and you wind up frying your new linings and warping the drums from the heat. Plus, the drag doesn't help the gas mileage. But ... it'll only drag until it burns up the linings.

I can think of one very good reason to retro-fit with a carb: being able to limp home if your fuel pump goes out, or the CPS (which, of course, you won't have with a carburetted engine). I have considered this many times, but I can't do it because it won't pass emissions. (Not meaning it would run dirty, just that it's not a legal conversion. I'd fail on a vial equipment check.) If I were building a Jeep specifically for going on long treks into far away places (like Africa, or Patagonia in South America, or the Atacama desert in northern Chile) I would do it for sure. With a carburetor, you only need a couple of psi to deliver fuel to the float bowl. On my old Hudson pickup (yes, Hudson did build pickups, and I've owned three of them) I have limped home using a coffee can suspended under the hood with a rubber hose to act as an intravenous feed to the carb when the fuel pump crapped out. Try THAT with MPFI that needs 39 psi to run. I am also quite certain I could rig a 4.0L with a carb to get better gas mileage than the EFI models get. My old Rambler American used to regularly post 28 MPG highway. I've only gotten that ONCE with the '88 Cherokee, and I've never come close with the MJ. ------------------------------- How to do it: Hit the junkyards and get the manifolds, distributor, coil, etc from any 6-cylinder AMC car, preferably a 258 (4.2L) but a 232 or even a 199 will work. The old 199 only had a single barrel carb, though. The best setup would be an aftermarket intake (probably Clifford offers one) to accept a small 4-barrel carb. Otherwise, just go with the standard 2-bbl that came on the 232 and 258 engines.

The Wrangler Rubicon only came out in 2003. When it was introduced, it used air actuated lockers. I doubt they changed over to electrics after only one year, so I'll guess that your axle still has the air locker. It only needs 5 or 6 psi to operate, so you can set up any small, auxiliary compressor, or maybe even just a pressurized cannister with some sort of regulator.

I belive he means Dirtbike. :nuts: It's a good thing we all speak English ... so we can communicate. I NEVER would have guess that D/B was short for dirt bike.

Isn't it illegal to steal body parts? Oh ... you meant the MJ! Seriously, I sympathize greatly. My back was wrecked in a car accident when I was 14. I'm not 64 -- the accident was 50 years ago this July, and I have spent that 50 years being maintained by chiropractors. I've been very lucky, because I've done a lot of things the docs told me I shouldn't do but, hey ... you gotta have a life. God speed, and best wishes. I hope they'll get you fixed up.

Not all TJ axles have lockers, only the Rubicon. Of course, it's only the Rubicon that has the faux Dana 44.

You might just go to Homeless Depot or Lowe's and get a 3/4" lever-actuated ball valve. Solder a short length of tube into each side and mount it in-line in the hose to the heater core. Then you can turn the heat on or off manually any time you want.

IIRC the original Rubicon lockers were air-operated. They went over to electric after about three or four years.

The vehicles in the first post look like the ambulance/courier version of the Ford M151 MUTT, which was the all-independent suspension utility vehicle that replaced the Willys Jeep in the U.S. military. That's what we had in Vietnam. It was supplanted by the Humvee. The MUTT was so unstable and so prone to turning over that the Department of Defense will not sell them as complete vehicles. They are auctioned as parts only (on the hoof), and if you buy one you have to cut it in half with a torch before you are allowed to remove it from the vehicle depot where it is stored. http://www.chooseyouritem.com/classics/ ... 38628.html http://www.4wdonline.com/Mil/M151/M151.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M151_MUTT

3.8 is probably a typo. It's probably a 2.8L, which means it's an '86, which means it's a longbed AND a turkey of a motor. I'm a lot closer to Boston than he is. What are you looking for and what price range are you shopping?

The ball (a.k.a. "the blimp") is a vacuum storage reservoir. The heater controls are all actuated by vacuum. That's what moves the flappers that direct air to your feet, the front of the dashboard, or the top of the dashboard. The default (if you have no vacuum) is the defrost outlets on top of the dash. What the blimp does is provide a small reservoir to hold vacuum when the engine is under heavy load, such as going up a long incline. When the hose to mine started leaking, I had normal heat on my feet on level ground, then going up long hills the output would gradually shift to the defrost. Once I topped the hill and had vacuum again, the output would $#!& back to my feet. IIRC, there is also a vacuum tube running to the water shutoff valve under the hood, but I don't recall which way that defaults when you lose vacuum. If you don't have the ball, start by replacing it and then see what happens.

short answer; 2 small and 2 bigger holes if it's the egg-shaped one. the round one may be the same, but I don't recall. there were two different ones available and i'm not sure why The long one has two chambers, one for heater controls and one for cruise control. The round one is for vehicles w/o cruise.

I was trying to talk you out of doing something you will probably regret before very long. Looks like I didn't succeed.

Um, you might want to research the D44HD that is in the WJs. Just because it is aluminum does not means it's weak. Yes it does. In fact, it is so weak that the factory service manual cautions never to jack up the back of the vehicle with a floor jack under the pumpkin, because the weight of the vehicle pressing down on the tubes while the jack pushes up on the center section will warp the center section. I had a WJ with that axle. It was howling like a banshee after less than 10,000 miles. PURE JUNK!

Stay away from 1986 MJs with the GM 2.8L V6 engine. Seriously. You're WAY better off with the 4-cylinder than the 2.8L

No, that might allow the $3,000 to be put to some constructive use. My point is that this conversion, as described, is a complete, total waste of money, and still involves a lot of work. If you're going to piss away that kind of money, at least save yourself the physical work and just torch the bills.

When you say "Heater doesn't work," do you mean there is no heat (blows cold air), or do you mean the ventilating fan doesn't blow air?

This is a complete no brainer. Anyone who would do it has no brain. The strength gains overall are so negligible that the cost-to-gain ratio is astronomical. It doesn't add sufficient beef to make for a decent rock crawler. And for DD duty, as you suggest your purpose is, you can make a stock high-pinion Dana 30 as strong or stronger for a LOT less money. The only real advantage to this is that deeper gears are available for the D44 ... but for daily driver use you probably don't need anything deeper than 4.88 anyway, so what's the point? Save yourself a lot of work. Just take $3,000 out of the bank and put a match to it.

Or the seller could be an idiot. A couple of years ago I went with a friend to look at an MJ he wanted to buy (and did buy). It was advertised as a '92. Once we looked under the hood and saw a Renix setup and a C101 connector on the firewall, we checked the VIN. Sure enough, it was an '88. The owner still tried to maintain it was a '92, until he finally brought out the title and read the little box that says "Year" Not unlike the used car dealer near where I used to work. A friend asked me to check out what sounded like a great deal on a '98 XJ 4.0L 5-speed. I went over after work. The XJ was there and looked pretty nice -- except that it had idiot lights instead of gauges, and it was supposed to be a Sport. The sales drone came out, unlocked it, we popped the hood -- and there sat a nice, clean little 4-cylinder engine. The guy tried to tell me he didn't have any idea what happened, "... it was a 6-cylinder when we drove it in here." He kept looking on the driver's side of the block for the missing spark plugs. I guess he thought it was some new kind of V6 layout -- 4 cylinders on one side and 2 on the other. He never found the other two cylinders, though. Dunno what happened to it. They were asking $6500 for it as a 6-cylinder. I asked him if they'd take $6,000 for it knowing it wasn't what they had advertised it as, and he refused. Oh, well ... The moral is ... don't believe anything you can't verify with your own two eyes.

$20K! :eek: What are France's vehicle import laws? I think you could import one from the US east coast for half that space available. And we're both RHD countries. I was thinking the same thing. And I am on the east coast, and I happen to have a few Comanches for sale Jean-Philippe: Nous avons besoin de parler!